This article has moved:
https://janniklindquist.substack.com/p/rational-and-irrational-striving-18-12-20
This article has moved: https://janniklindquist.substack.com/p/stoicism-and-evil-governments-19-01-03
Thoughts and notes on the ancient Greek and Roman philosophy of happiness in general and on Stoicism and Seneca in particular.
As hinted above, desire is the root of all turmoil in the soul. Desire is in itself an irrational striving for something - it is to want something more than it is worth to want that thing. As such it always contains an element of fear - which is fear of the pain of not being able to have the desired thing (with pain being the realisation that we can't have something which we desire). Pleasure is the unhealthy experience of getting what we desired :-)
ReplyDeleteAll of which explains why - for the Stoics - the first step in the progress towards wisdom is to stop desiring.